This class will offer a far from exhaustive survey of American
Literature from 1865-1914. We will read Emily Dickinson because
she’s there and because there is no one quite like her. Our major
focus, however, will be on the fiction of the period. In part, we
will examine the development of, and the relations between, American
realism, naturalism, and modernism. We will look, too, at how the
writers we examine engage directly, or otherwise, with cultural,
social, and political issues central to the period: race and Jim
Crow racism, suffrage and women’s rights, class difference and
exploitation, immigration, the growth of the city, and the
development of consumer capitalism. We will be concerned, then, not
only with how writers do what they do, but also with the impact they
wished to have on their readers and the culture of which they were
members. Be prepared, then, to do a small amount of historical
reading and research.

Class participation, two 6-8 page essays, an exam, and a series of
in-class and out-of-class written responses.